


The Great Ray of Kferri

by ThePreciousHeart



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Bodyswap, Other, Personality Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePreciousHeart/pseuds/ThePreciousHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between Live, the Universe and Everything and So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, the crew of the Heart of Gold are united for one last time and come across an entirely improbable phenomenon that causes unexpected effects- everyone switches body with each other. Will they ever get back to normal?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Ray of Kferri

**Author's Note:**

> Characters belong to Douglas Adams, derangement disguised as humor belongs to me. The pairings aren't exactly right, but it's all I could do.

     It was less than an ordinary day on the starship _Heart of Gold,_ which is to say that the morning so far was mind-numbingly boring and mundane. Nothing remotely improbable had happened thus far, most likely because no one had activated the ship’s Infinite Improbability Drive. The crew was leisurely taking its time returning to the planet Krikkit, where Arthur Dent, one of two humans left alive in the entire Universe, would be dropped off, expected to spend a few years recovering from the trauma of his space adventures, which seemed to have driven him slightly mad.

         One would think that under these circumstances- being stuck with a madman on board the ship- the _Heart of Gold_ would just hurry up and speed off to Krikkit in order to get him off-board as soon as possible, but as Arthur was not doing much besides sit in a corner muttering and musing over the meaning of life, and occasionally asking anyone who passed by him if they would please get him some bloody _real_ tea, the crew found no reason to hurry. So the _Heart of Gold_ drifted idly, which was a shame for Arthur and its other inhabitants, because if they had bothered to hurry up and rush they would have been spared from dealing with a highly improbable occurrence, one that didn’t need an activated Improbability Drive to occur and one that was bound to send an already slightly mad individual over the edge into absolute, total madness.

         When consulted, the wholly remarkable book _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ has this to say about the upcoming improbable occurrence:

         _The Great Ray of Kferri is one of the few phenomenon in the Universe listed on a scale of oddness levels from 1 to 10, 1 being “not so odd after all” and 10 being “more improbable than being picked up in space after 30 seconds by one’s semi-half-cousin and the last remaining female member of an otherwise extinct race whom one has already met before,” which is to say it has an Improbability factor of over two to the power of two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand, seven-hundred-and-nine to one against, to be a solid 10. It ranks in oddness right up there with the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and the vast Transmission Screens of Patahuzoan. The only reason the Ray of Kferri is ranked so high, however, is that, unlike the phenomena that rank mere sixes or sevens, no one knows for sure what its origins are. Without this vital fact, the Ray would be classified as a level 7 on the oddness scale at most, which is roughly the same as “as improbable as finding a pair of socks that actually match out of a hundred socks.” Some people claim that it’s a chasm torn in the very fabric of the Universe, while others think it is a defense mechanism for a planet that’s too ashamed of its population’s propensity for braiding flower chains when on the whole, it should be working, to be found by unsuspecting travelers, who will surely mock the planet’s population mercilessly. As a matter of fact, neither of these hypotheses have any shred of evidence to back them up, and both fail to explain why the Great Ray might be called Kferri, or why it has the bizarrely improbable effect on visitors that it does. The improbable effect is this- when any spacecraft carrying two or more passengers passes through it, the Ray transfers the minds of each traveler into the bodies of another._

The entry goes on to explain what one should do in a predicament like that, and offers a tried-and-true cure for the inevitable body swap, but unfortunately for the passengers of the _Heart of Gold,_ this entry comes from the most recent edition of the _Guide_ and was only revised after the travelers had switched bodies. Thus the bad news was that it took them much longer than it would have to figure out what was going on and how to change back into their own selves, but the good news was that they did eventually figure it out, and one of the passengers happened to work for the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,_ and so wrote the entry which was just quoted above.

       At the present moment, the only entry on the Great Ray of Kferri was written by one who had been too badly shaken by the experience to talk about it, and consisted solely of the words _“HAMRFUL. AVOID AS WELL AS YOU CAN.”_ This person was so distraught that he had to abandon his job and spend a few months in a hospital with well-cushioned walls, while insisting on keeping as far away from his female partner- his former traveling companion- as possible. The hospital did not do him much good, and as a matter of fact he would have had a much more relaxing time of it if he had visited Krikkit, had Krikkit been available at the time. Which brings the story back to the _Heart of Gold_ and its eventual destination.

         At the moment, events on the _Heart of Gold_ were not proceeding at the average level of oddness, which due to its Improbability Drive, was usually stuck around 8 or 9 territory. Arthur was curled in a corner scowling at the latest excuse for tea that the Nutri-Matic had offered him, in an attempt to shut him up once and for all, for even machines have limits. “You made me tea _before,_ why can’t you do it again?” were Arthur’s complaints, but no one on board the ship was eager to try that again, for the last time the Nutri-Matic machine had attempted to make tea, the entire ship had been shut down in the process. It hardly seemed worth a single cup of delicious liquid, which only Trillian could come close to understanding the importance of, and even she thought that Arthur was being a little too fanatic about it. So Arthur continued to brood on the meaning of life and how he felt at peace with the Universe, and everyone within earshot of him tried their best to tune out his ramblings.

     As for herself, Trillian had one half of her brain on the controls of the ship, watching its coordinates and making sure it was going in the right direction, and the other half of her brain was preoccupied with brushing up on knowledge by reading through the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,_ learning about the Galaxy while also researching the best places to go and hang out once this business with Arthur was done. She was doing this partly because she felt that she and Zaphod could use a vacation, away from all the excitement that had been in their lives lately, but also partly because Ford Prefect had asked her to. He had been let down by the type of excitement that Trillian had been living lately, as it had too much to do with saving the Universe and not enough to do with chatting up pretty girls and getting plastered, and so was looking for a place to be dropped off to have a good time after dropping Arthur off to lead a peaceful existence on Krikkit. At the moment, while Trillian read her copy of the _Guide,_ Ford sat with his on his lap and slowly sipped his drink, a glass of the Ol’ Janx Spirit, which would not have been his first choice but was all Zaphod had on hand at the moment. Zaphod, at the moment, was out of the room, reclining in his artificial sun-tanning chair, fast asleep. Marvin the Paranoid Android was also asleep, or as asleep as a robot could be, having shut himself off. This was no great loss to the crew, and most of them wished that Trillian hadn’t talked the Krikkitmen into letting Marvin go and join his old “friends” now that he had no use for war plans anymore. It was one downfall, Zaphod had mused privately, of Trillian’s demeanor- she showed compassion to more than just one being, no matter how insufferable the being might be. He would rather she save all her loving for just him.

         All told, the synthetic morning was off to a slow start, which is why it can’t be helped that the Universe decided to throw the Great Ray of Kferri across the _Heart of Gold’s_ path, just to see if things would liven up a bit. There had been a total of one minute and 26 seconds of silence before Trillian noticed something worrying on the screen that she was only half-watching. She immediately put her _Guide_ down and trained all of her attention on the large mass that was stealthily moving right towards the _Heart of Gold-_ or rather, the _Heart of Gold_ was moving right towards it.

         “Does anyone know what this is?” Trillian asked, gesturing to the screen.

         Ford looked up from his drink. “You should know. You’ve got the coordinates.”

       “According to the map, there isn’t supposed to be anything in this sector of the Galaxy for another few miles,” Trillian murmured. “Nothing this large anyway. It looks like it could be dangerous.”

         “Did someone say dangerous?” piped up two voices at once- one full of extreme apprehension, belonging to Arthur in the corner of the room, and one full of interest, belonging to the now-awake Zaphod Beeblebrox.

         “Zaphod, come look at this,” Trillian called, and in a few moments he arrived at her side, hurriedly pulling on a shirt and wiping the suntan oil off of his skin.

         “If it’s dangerous,” Arthur continued sulkily, “there would be no surprise… Practically everything that’s happened since the Earth was blown up has been dangerous, but no one expects me to get the hell out like any proper being would do…”

         “Aw, shut up, Earthman,” Zaphod grumbled, peering intently at the screen. “You sound like the robot.”

       “’The robot’ does not particularly like being addressed as such,” proclaimed Marvin, who had turned himself on a few second ago and had not said anything about it, “but what do you care? For all the work you give me, I might as well be just ‘the robot.’ That’s all I’m reduced to, a meaningless non-entity, someone to do your chores for you and then forget about… Here I am, brain the-“ At this point it is important to interrupt Marvin’s dialogue, for he has said the same words a thousand times before and no one needs them to be repeated again. This can especially be said for the crew of the _Heart of Gold,_ who had stopped listening nearly as soon as Marvin began to speak. _At least I’m not_ that _bad,_ Arthur thought sullenly. _Not yet._

“What am I looking at, doll-face?” Zaphod asked Trillian, leaning in closer to the screen while also leaning in closer to her. By this point Ford had abandoned his drink in favor of also crowding around the screen, and the only living being who had no interest whatsoever in the screen was Arthur, who hoped to God that the thing was just a fluke and would turn out to be not so dangerous after all. He tried to blot out the sound of the other living beings discussing what they were seeing, but snippets of words got through to his ears anyway.

         “That,” Trillian explained, pointing to the large, dark mass, which appeared to have slowly decreased the distance between it and the _Heart of Gold._ “What do you think it is?”

         “Er,” said Zaphod, squinting at the screen and preparing to make a half-arsed remark, “I think it could be-“

         “Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good,” Ford jumped in quickly, knowing Zaphod’s propensity for not knowing what he was saying half the time, and sometimes even more often than that. “Is there any way to go around it?”

         Trillian scoped out the area for a few seconds before responding, “No. It’s too long and too wide to avoid hitting.”

           “Well, even if it’s some huge wall, what’s the worst that can happen?” Zaphod asked.

       “We could get crushed,” Ford reminded him. “Flattened.”

       “Oh _joy,”_ Arthur sang sarcastically from his hiding place in the corner.

         “We’ll be coming into contact with it shortly,” Trillian said, doing a few calculations in her head. “If it’s a wall, prepare to be crushed in roughly five minutes.”

         “And… if it’s not a wall?” Zaphod said, realizing at once what a dire-seeming situation they were in.

         Ford shrugged and Trillian blinked. “I don’t know what it could be. We’ll just wait to find out.”

         The passengers toughed out the next five minutes in tense silence. Trillian passed the time by watching the mass loom nearer and nearer on the screen. Zaphod passed the time by wondering why he didn’t feel as concerned as he felt he should be feeling. Ford passed the time by finishing off his drink and considering pouring another, and Arthur passed the time by debating whether or not to point out the completely obvious- “So this is it, we’re going to die”- before deciding that he had pointed it out too often for once. Marvin merely shut himself off again, resigning himself to his fate.

       And then the _Heart of Gold_ collided with the Great Ray of Kferri, and the world flipped upside down and turned inside out and didn’t straighten itself out for a while after.

       When the travelers on board the _Heart of Gold_ came to, no one noticed anything different at first. They had been too rattled from the collision. Anything that had been on shelves or in cupboards had now fallen off the shelves and out of the cupboards, and the whole place was now a mess.

         Arthur spent a few blissful moments with his eyes closed, telling himself that whatever he would see when he opened them couldn’t possibly be as bad as all that, but then stiffened when he heard a voice break the silence- a highly familiar voice. “Is everyone okay?” Arthur opened his eyes, compelled by the tone of the speaker- and the very first thing he saw was himself. This was not because anyone was holding a mirror to his face, but because the Great Ray of Kferri had worked its magic and someone else was now inhabiting Arthur Dent’s body.

       Arthur stared, and his clone stared back at him. The more he blinked, the less Arthur 2.0 refused to go away, which greatly bothered the real Arthur and would have sent him panicking had he not suddenly noticed that the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ was lying right next to him, spelling out the large, friendly motto of DON’T PANIC. But under these circumstances… Arthur 2.0 then blinked back, and a confused expression crossed his face. “Trillian?”

         Slowly, Arthur tore his gaze away from Arthur 2.0 to look for Trillian, but to his surprise, she was nowhere to be found. He whipped his gaze back onto Arthur 2.0, noticing as he had never noticed before just how threadbare his dressing gown was, and how badly he needed to shave. As he whipped his head around, he felt soft something brush his cheeks, something that felt awfully like the end of a ponytail. But Arthur had never had hair long enough to put into one, except when he was stranded on prehistoric Earth…

         “Where is she?” Arthur asked his double, and was momentarily taken aback by the sound of his voice. Instead of the deep tone he had come to expect hearing from himself, his voice was replaced with a high-pitched _feminine_ timbre.

       Arthur 2.0 gave a shrug, one that looked utterly too carefree for real Arthur. “I thought I was talking to her.” It was only outside of his body that Arthur could hear his true voice, and he was disgusted to find that it sounded exactly the way it did on recordings.

       Frantically, Arthur got to his feet, realizing that something was terribly wrong, and was surprised when he did so in a graceful manner. That stopped him dead in his tracks. _Graceful?_ If there was one word that did not describe Arthur Dent whatsoever, it was _graceful._ He never did anything gracefully, even if it was as small an action as getting to his feet after falling over. In shock, Arthur stared down at his body- and found himself, if he was already in shock, now getting completely electrocuted. He grabbed at his chest in horrible fascination. “My- I- I’ve got- I’m- they’re _breasts!”_

“Yes,” said Arthur 2.0, “they are. Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed you’re a woman before.”

         “Hey, is everyone okay?” a voice sounded from across the floor. Arthur and Arthur 2.0 glanced across the rubble to see Ford Prefect making his way towards them with a swagger in his step. Worry was in his large, purple-tinted irises, but as soon as he caught sight of Arthur (or whoever Arthur Dent appeared to have been turned into), an expression of relief filled his features. “Trillian, baby!” Arthur could only watch blankly as Ford hurried in his direction, only to be stopped by Arthur 2.0, who stepped in front of him and grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him in place.

         “Hey, what’s the matter with you, Earthman?” Ford spat in a tone that was becoming increasingly unlike Ford, struggling violently with Arthur’s double. With all the madness and unbelievable occurrences piling up, Arthur’s brain couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, and all that came to mind at the moment was his surprise at how much stronger he appeared to be than how he had actually thought. Sure, Ford was smaller in size than Arthur, but Arthur had never expected to be able to physically hold him back, and figured that whoever was using his body at the moment (for Arthur certainly wasn’t using it) must know how to work his muscles better than he himself knew how to.

       “What’s the matter?!” Arthur 2.0 shrieked, and Arthur realized then that he didn’t need to be in… in a woman’s body to have such a high-pitched voice. All that was needed was stress, and this certainly was a time for stress. At least Arthur 2.0 knew how to use _that_ properly. He watched himself shake Ford by the collar. “The matter is that you’re inside _my_ body right now!”

           “What are you going on about?” Ford grumbled in an unaffected tone. “I look nothing like you semi-evolved simian! Have you ever _seen_ me? Oh, right, you probably haven’t because you’re so busy moping about tea and your planet that exploded. Well, I’d better inform you that I’m really a fantastic-looking frood!” One hand broke free to smooth his red hair back. “Whereas you… well, someone find me a mirror, and then we’ll sort this matter out.”

       “Zaphod,” Arthur 2.0 said, letting go of Ford, who stumbled backwards and made a dramatic show of checking his skin for bruises, “don’t you think there’s something… strange about your body?”

       “Are you trying to say you don’t like the extra arm as much as you let on?” Ford said suspiciously.

       “No,” said Arthur 2.0, shaking his head. “I’m saying that the extra arm isn’t there at all. And for that matter, neither is your body.” He pointed past Ford to a spot on the other side of the room, and both Ford and Arthur turned their heads to see two figures lying slouched in the corner. Marvin was collapsed on his side, and Zaphod lay slumped against the wall, both of his heads out cold.

       Arthur didn’t see what was so exciting about this- at least the two more annoying members of the _Heart of Gold’s_ crew had shut up for once- but Ford reacted with visible shock. He gasped, moved his arms down his body as if searching for an appendage that wasn’t there, and then cupped his windpipe with his hands. “Holy Zarquon!” he gaped. “I’ve been reincarnated! I’m lying dead over there, and here I am with only one head and two arms…”

         “I think the more probable explanation,” Arthur 2.0 explained to the Ford who was Zaphod, “if you can call it that, is that we’ve all switched bodies.”

         “I don’t see how the photon you would know, Earthman,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod bristled. Arthur now found this a good time to pipe up with, “Would someone please care to explain what the _hell_ is going on?!”

       Arthur 2.0- the Arthur-who-was-Ford- and Ford-who-was-Zaphod both swung their heads in Arthur’s direction, and once again, Ford-who-was-Zaphod started to go to Arthur. “I don’t know, baby, but we’ll figure it out,” he said, coming too close to Arthur for comfort. Instantly Arthur backed away, holding up his hands to stop Ford-who-was-Zaphod from getting even closer (and marveling at the light brown tone of his slender fingers). “Are you all right?”

         “For goodness sakes, Zaphod, don’t try to make any moves!” uttered Arthur-who-was-Ford, and Arthur recognized the peeved tone in his own voice. “That’s not Trillian over there.”

           “What do you mean?” Ford-who-was-Zaphod asked. At that moment, everything fell into place for Arthur, and he gasped and staggered back, trying to prevent the Universe from making any more twisted sense.

         “You mean to tell me that _I’m Trillian?!”_ His voice shot up an octave- one upside to suddenly finding himself in a woman’s body. Panic began to mount in him, no matter how hard he stared at the _Guide_ lying nearby on the floor, and it was not alleviated by Arthur-who-was-Ford nodding gravely. Ford-who-was-Zaphod merely looked mildly annoyed.

           “So if you’re the monkey man, and he’s Ford-“ Ford-who-was-Zaphod jerked his thumb behind his back, indicating Arthur-who-was-Ford- “and I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox, which of course I already was, where’s the real Trillian got to?”

       “Hello,” said Marvin suddenly, switching himself on as if he had been called by some unheard cue, “what just happened?”

         Arthur, Arthur-who-was-Ford, and Ford-who-was-Zaphod all turned around to stare at Marvin, lying ungracefully on his side and looking as if he would not be able to get back up on his own. Ford-who-was-Zaphod and Arthur-who-was-Ford rushed over to help him get back upright again.

         “Where’s Zaphod?” Marvin asked as the two heaved, setting him upright. “Why are you helping me stand? Why does my voice sound- Oh, _God,”_ he finished, catching sight of Trillian-who-was-Arthur across the room. “What am I doing over there?”

         Arthur-who-was-Ford attempted to explain to Marvin-who-was-Trillian, while Ford-who-was-Zaphod glanced at the two-headed body lying in the corner with interest. “So if Marvin’s Trillian,” he said, “then that makes me…”

       Zaphod’s four eyes suddenly snapped open, and both of his mouths curved downward in a frown. He lifted two of his arms to the back of his heads, wincing at touching a sore spot, before murmuring in a perfect dejected duet with both mouths, “I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.”

           “Oh, great Zarquon,” was all Ford-who-was-Zaphod could say, staring with horror at the robotic inhabitant of his body.

       The following few minutes were spent with all five inhabitants of the _Heart of Gold_ yelling at each other- “You’ve got no right to use my body!” “What do you think I’m going to _do_ with it?” “All I know is, I want it back _now!”-_ until at last they had all tired out and retired to various sections of the main room to try and figure the matter out with their individual minds. Arthur-who-was-Ford took up the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ and began sifting through it, looking for advice on what to do if one had suddenly switched bodies for unfathomable and highly improbable reasons. Ford-who-was-Zaphod and Arthur-who-was-Trillian both stood in shock, Zaphod unable to believe that Marvin was inhabiting his body and Arthur unable to believe that he had been turned into a woman and trying not to think about how much Trillian’s body differed from the body he was accustomed to, especially in certain regions…

         “All I want,” Trillian exploded suddenly, using Marvin’s robotic, perpetually-depressed voice, “is to get out of the body of this blasted robot! I’m in terrible pain on my left side.”

       “See?” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin moped. “Even she complains about it.”

       “We’ll figure it out,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod said again to Marvin-who-was-Trillian, but his tone was absent and his eyes had landed on Trillian-who-was-Arthur again.

         “I looked up ‘switching bodies’ in the _Guide,_ but all that came up was an entry for something called ‘The Great Ray of Kferri’ that was only two sentences long,” Arthur-who-was-Ford said, sighing in disbelief. “Shoddy journalism.”

       “It’s still better than two words,” Trillian-who-was-Arthur muttered, but no one heard.

         Arthur-who-was-Ford tapped on the screen of the _Guide,_ moving his fingers more deftly than Arthur ever had when he was in his own body. “Oh yeah, and it directed me to an entry for some really nice-looking mental hospital,” he said. “Guess switching bodies is a symptom of being mad.”

         “Wouldn’t surprise me,” Trillian-who-was-Arthur muttered again. He crossed his arms over Trillian’s breasts in a very Arthur Dent-like fashion, disliking the way Ford-who-was-Zaphod was staring at him.

         “Aren’t you glad now, Marvin, that you’re not in pain anymore?” Marvin-who-was-Trillian asked Zaphod-who-was-Marvin.

         Zaphod-who-was-Marvin swung both of his heads towards her. “Why should I be glad about that?” he mumbled in the most pathetic voice any of the life forms on board the _Heart of Gold_ had ever heard. “Even outside of my body, I’m still depressed. Even you hate being me. Don’t try to deny it. I hate being me too.” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin then used his newfound ability of facial expressions to mold both of his faces into a mask of deep depression, where one glimpse of such a sight would cause any sentient being to burst into tears and want to hug the poor robot inside a Betelgeusian’s body. However, the look was lost on the majority of the _Heart of Gold’s_ passengers. Arthur-who-was-Ford was too distracted by the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,_ Ford-who-was-Zaphod not only lacked tear ducts, but also was too busy formulating an idea that had just popped into his head regarding Trillian-who-was-Arthur (and besides, would have found the expression revolting on his own faces), and Marvin-who-was-Trillian was, of course, in a robot’s body (although seeing someone who appeared to be Zaphod looking so upset made Trillian instantly want to comfort him). Only Trillian-who-was-Arthur had the capacity to be moved by Zaphod-who-was-Marvin’s expression of utter devastation, but even he wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of hugging him.

       “Even in a new body, people still don’t care about me,” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin complained, and then tried to shut himself off, only to find the Betelgeusian bodies don’t work that way and promptly complaining about how awful his situation was.

       Meanwhile, Ford-who-was-Zaphod quit his staring at Trillian-who-was-Arthur to slyly stroke the bottom of his chin, as if he was thinking deep thoughts, and murmur at just the right pitch that would draw listeners in, “I wonder…”

         Arthur-who-was-Ford looked up, having been drawn in. “What do you wonder, Zaph? Is there a way to get us out of this?”

       “I don’t know about that,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod continued at the same quiet murmur, “but if I must say, you’ve got a really nice, interesting body here, Ford. I never noticed it before.”

         “Why thank you,” Arthur-who-was-Ford said cautiously, though he still managed to crack a grin (and was disappointed when he found that Arthur didn’t have enough muscles in his mouth as his own body did, therefore not making the grin as wide as he would have wished for).

         Still speaking in that low murmur, Ford-who-was-Zaphod went on, “You wouldn’t mind if I used it for something, would you?”

           Arthur-who-was-Ford switched the _Guide_ off. “What sort of thing are you proposing?”

         “Well,” said Ford-who-was-Zaphod, taking a step towards Trillian-who-was-Arthur, who then took a step back, “I don’t like mentioning it to others, but…” He turned his head around to look at where Arthur-who-was-Ford was sitting and began to speak rather quickly, but despite his efforts to muffle his words Trillian-who-was-Arthur could still hear them.

         “Trillian’s never, er, been satisfied by me in bed, and now that I have the perfect body for it…”

         Arthur-who-was-Ford just stared unblinkingly at Ford-who-was-Zaphod for the longest time in a very Ford Prefect-like manner, before recovering from his surprise to laugh outrageously. “You, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the ‘best bang since the Big One-‘” He framed his statement in quotation marks made by his fingers- “you aren’t able to satisfy Trillian?”

         “It has nothing to do with his personal abilities,” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin spoke up. “It is merely because of the fact that he has two-“

         “Hey, would you be quiet?” Ford-who-was-Zaphod growled. “We don’t need you to broadcast this to everyone.” He was blissfully unaware that already, everyone had heard.

       “-heads,” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin finished, innuendo filling his words. “It doesn’t make me feel any better.” He lapsed into silence

       “I see,” Arthur-who-was-Ford continued as if nothing had happened. “I assume human women are nothing like the Betelgeuse girls, then.”

       “Hey, you were stuck there for fifteen years, don’t tell me you didn’t get any of that,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod teased. Arthur-who-was-Ford merely shrugged and then lowered his voice. “So how do you guys, you know, do it?” He had never cared or thought to wonder before, but no one could deny the sounds he had heard emanating from Zaphod’s bedchamber just the simulated night before, or the fact that he had suddenly caught Trillian returning to her own sleeping quarters with a flushed, dazed expression on her face, unable or unwilling to explain what she had just been up to.

       “What do you think the extra arm’s for?” Ford-who-was-Zaphod said in an offended tone, indicating the space under his right arm where it should be and throwing a sidelong glance at the depressed Zaphod-who-was-Marvin sitting up against the wall. “I didn’t get it to play ‘Heart and Soul’ all by myself. See, the first two are for her breasts and the third’s for-“ He suddenly broke off and turned whatever he was about to say into a new statement. “Anyway, am I allowed to screw Trillian in this body or am I not?”

         “How are you going to do that to me?” Marvin-who-was-Trillian said. “Surely you don’t want to feel up a metal android.”

       Ford-who-was-Zaphod gave Marvin-who-was-Trillian a pure Zaphod Beeblebrox look, staring at her as if rainbows had just come squirting out of her ears. “What are you talking about, love? Your body’s right over there!” He gestured to Trillian-who-was-Arthur, who suddenly felt a terrible sensation of horror, but before he could run away Ford-who-was-Zaphod had advanced on him and was kissing him- lightly, but in a way that suggested urgency and shagging to come later. Overtaken by horror and shock, Trillian-who-was-Arthur lost his mind completely and hit Ford-who-was-Zaphod furiously, before Ford-who-was-Zaphod finally pulled away.

         “Don’t I get any say in this?!” Trillian-who-was-Arthur blurted, wiping his mouth. He couldn’t get over the idea that he had just been kissed by Ford, rather than Zaphod inside Ford’s body. And sure, Ford was his friend, but… not his _boyfriend._

“I’m not sure,” Arthur-who-was-Ford answered Ford-who-was-Zaphod’s query as if nothing had happened, “that you should be allowed to use my body to have sex with _Arthur.”_

“He doesn’t look like Arthur though,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod brushed it off, and Arthur was surprised to hear Zaphod use his name for the first time, even though he was still unbelievably disgusted by Zaphod’s actions.

         “He looks like Trillian,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod went on, “and Trillian’s my girl.”

         “Your girl is actually over here,” Marvin-who-was-Trillian said, but no one paid attention to her.

         “Now you know how I feel all the time,” whined Zaphod-who-was-Marvin. “They ignore me all the time, except when they need to get something done that they themselves could do just fine.”

       “Yes, but to him, you look exactly like me,” Arthur-who-was-Ford pointed out. “And he doesn’t want to be permanently scarred by the day his best friend decided to fuck him.”

       Ford-who-was-Zaphod laughed in a terrifying manner, sounding too much like Ford Prefect for Trillian-who-was-Arthur’s comfort. “And here I was thinking that that’s all you guys ever did! So what did you actually do when you were stuck on prehistoric Earth for five years? There couldn’t have been many broads to come your way.”

           “Sex was the last thing on my mind,” both Arthur-who-was-Ford and Trillian-who-was-Arthur said together, and then glanced at each other in confusion.

           “Oh, sure,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod scoffed, “and what about when you spent fifteen years on Earth, Ford? Why did you save the monkey man here if it wasn’t to do with… _true love?”_ He looked as if he was about to continue, but for once Trillian-who-was-Arthur ignored him in favor of listening to what Arthur-who-was-Ford had to say. It was something he had always wondered, personally, and occasionally he figured that he would have been better off not being saved and being spared from knowing that characters like Zaphod Beeblebrox even existed, not to mention the Vogons.

           Arthur-who-was-Ford used Arthur’s body to give one of Ford’s infamous shrugs. “He was the closest thing I had to a friend on Earth. I figured if anyone needed saving, it was him. Besides, I was hoping he’d like to help me write and edit the Guide.”

       “Well, I don’t see what was so special about him,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod grumbled, and Trillian-who-was-Arthur had to remind himself not to smack him across the face, because Trillian would probably not take kindly to the injury done to her hand when she got back to her body. _If_ she got back to her body.

           “That’s why I’m not letting you use my body to fuck Arthur,” Arthur-who-was-Ford said, crossing his arms. “It would be too disturbing for him, not to mention that he doesn’t want you to anyway. Besides, we don’t want to spend the rest of our trip back to Krikkit with a fully madman in our company. Who knows what could go wrong?”

       “Ha!” Ford-who-was-Zaphod snorted. “I bet you’re just insecure about yourself, Ford. You’re still sore because Eccentrica Gallumbitts named me ‘the best bang since the Big One-‘” He smiled a Ford Prefect-like wide smile, the one that made sane men run for the hills, as if waiting for someone to acknowledge the impressive title, despite the fact that everyone had already heard it before- “and she called you the 324th best bang.”

         “Oh, she’s biased towards you anyway!” Arthur-who-was-Ford shouted. “You’ve got an arm for each of her breasts!”

         “Good God!” Trillian-who-was-Arthur decided to shout back, and the phrase sounded strange coming from Trillian’s mouth. “Can all of you just shut up and find out how to get us back into our proper bodies?”

         “How do you propose we do that, Earthman?” Ford-who-was-Zaphod asked, shooting him an evil glare. “ _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ was no help.”

       Zaphod-who-was-Marvin decided at that point to open his eyes and offer some advice. “Why don’t you ask the computer if it knows?”

         All eyes fell on Zaphod-who-was-Marvin, and Ford-who-was-Zaphod was the first to react, snapping his fingers (and looking as if he very much would like another arm to swing at the same time) and beaming at his own body, as proud as he would be if he had discovered the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. “That’s a novel idea! Leave it to myself to think of it.” He went off towards the computer, whistling.

         “You didn’t think of it,” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin corrected. “ _I_ did. Though it’s a wonder how I can think at all with a brain this small. Having two of them doesn’t help.”

         “Do you ever,” Marvin-who-was-Trillian suddenly asked, “do anything meaningful with a brain this vast?” The perpetual ennui that continuously dogged Marvin had begun to set in for Trillian, and she realized suddenly why the robot should be taken seriously every time he complained about having a brain the size of a planet.

       “I calculated pi to the very last digit once,” Zaphod-who-was-Marvin answered. “It wasn’t enlightening whatsoever.”

       “COMPUTER!” Ford-who-was-Zaphod suddenly boomed, standing in the middle of the room. “We’re in a jam that we need out of!”

         “Hi guys!” chirped the ever-cheerful Eddie the Computer. “What can I do for you?”

       “Tell us what you know about switching bodies,” implored Ford-who-was-Zaphod. “And quickly.”

         “I’m afraid I don’t have the kind of information you want,” Eddie mused regretfully. “Have you tried consulting the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?”_

“What do you mean you don’t have the kind of information we want?” Ford-who-was-Zaphod spat. “The _Guide_ was no help. You’re a powerful computer, you should know this stuff!”

         “Careful, careful,” Eddie cautioned. “Don’t be so impatient, Mr. Prefect. If it’s any help, I’d like to let you know that the unknown wall we passed through was actually called the Great Ray of Kferri, and that it leads to all passengers of a starship switching bodies when one drives through it. Several people have lived to tell the tale, but only one knows how to change back into one’s regular body.”

         “And do you know how to do that?” Ford-who-was-Zaphod asked, leaning his hands on the controls.

         “I’m afraid I don’t,” Eddie responded. “However, we can connect you to the person who does via the Sub-Etha network.”

         Ford-who-was-Zaphod spun around and tossed a grin at the rest of the crew of the _Heart of Gold._ “Say, this is easy as pie! We just need to talk to this cat and find out his secret, and then we’ll be back to normal and on our way to Krikkit!”

         “Go ahead and connect to him, then,” Marvin-who-was-Trillian suggested in an increasingly dulled tone. She was beginning to explore Marvin’s mental faculties, and was simultaneously surprised and apathetic to learn that if the _Heart of Gold_ hadn’t passed the Great Ray of Kferri so quickly, the robot could have been able to analyze it, explain what it was, and find a cure for its effects right away if the ship didn’t escape in time. Marvin-who-was-Trillian vaguely wondered why Marvin hadn’t just explained what they were up against before this whole debacle began, and then realized that he had cared too little, and besides, no one had thought of asking him what he knew. As it was, the Ray was too far behind the _Heart of Gold_ now for Marvin-who-was-Trillian to analyze it and solve any problems. Such is life.

         As Marvin-who-was-Trillian pondered these incidents, Eddie was connecting with the one man alive who knew the cure for having unexpectedly switched bodies. Arthur-who-was-Ford glanced up with interest as the coordinates of the man’s location flashed across the screen. “Hey,” he said, “that’s where the mental hospital that the _Guide_ cross-referenced in relation to switching bodies is located. It’s a bloody expensive place.”

         Everyone’s attention was turned at once to the screen as it crackled with static, and then the image appeared as radiant and clear as day. A humanoid creature stared at the crew with all three eyes wide, his pasty complexion adding to the impression of being startled and nervous. Behind him, the raptly-watching Trillian-who-was-Arthur could just barely make out thick padding on the walls.

         “Who’s there?” the man asked, peering deeply into the screen. “What do you want from me _now?”_

         Arthur-who-was-Ford leapt up from his seat by the control panel and walked around to face the man. He quickly checked the _Guide_ for the man’s name. “Er- Quonthrop Fregjoobs, is it…?-“

       “Yes, right now I am,” Quonthrop answered. “Thank Zarquon. I wasn’t so much then!” The stare of his unblinking three eyes, widened to their strongest ability and with very large pupils that nearly drowned out the purple of their irises, greatly disturbed the majority of the crew of the _Heart of Gold_ (all except for Zaphod-who-was-Marvin), although none of them but Trillian-who-was-Arthur bothered to show it. He gulped and looked away from the screen, preferring to listen to the man’s words instead.

         “What,” Quonthrop continued, “can you do for me?”

         “How in the world did he get a Sub-Etha communicator in his room?” Arthur-who-was-Ford muttered to himself, peering around the background of the room to see if he could discern any other items that would normally be restricted from access by insane individuals.

         “Listen,” said Ford-who-was-Zaphod, cutting straight to the chase. “We’ve been through the Great Ray of Kferri, and our computer informs us that you’re the man who knows the cure for it.”

         “What?” Quonthrop blurted, suddenly horrified. “The… Great… Ray… of… _Kferri?!”_ At once his three eyes were all that the viewers from the _Heart of Gold_ could see as he leaned forward into the screen and began shaking the device that was filming him. “ _Don’t mention that name!_ Aieeeeeehhhhh…”

         “Excuse me?” sounded a nearby voice from inside the padded room. Quonthrop’s eyes slowly turned to the side, and then lit up at whatever he saw. “Oh!” He pulled away from the screen, his mouth open wide and twisted upwards into a smile. A large glass filled with a yellow-colored liquid appeared on the screen, and Ford-who-was-Zaphod and Arthur-who-was-Ford both had to bite their lips to keep from salivating. It had been too long since either of them had had a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, what with having to save the Universe and all, and the drink looked completely and utterly tempting.

         “Drink, sir?” the nearby voice continued.

         “Oh,” said Quonthrop quietly. “Yes, please.” He took the offered drink and unknowingly made a show of taking a huge, tantalizing sip from it. Arthur-who-was-Ford swallowed heavily. “So,” said Quonthrop in a peaceful tone, “what did you want to know?”

         Arthur-who-was-Ford broke in. “Can you tell us how to reverse the effects of the Great- er, of the thingy that put you in this hospital in the first place?” He made a mental note to visit this mental hospital in case he ever decided to go mad again. With facilities like these, the prospect was tempting.

         Quonthrop’s eyes darkened, and it was only by taking another steadying sip of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster that he got through the explanation. “It’s quite simple, really. All you have to do is each of you say your names backwards. For example, mine is Sboobjgerf Porhtnouq. It restores each of you back to your own bodies.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “But don’t tell anybody that I can talk about this matter without freaking out, or they’ll move me out of here and stop giving me free drinks. They seem to think drinks will cure the mind. And it’s rather cozy in here.”

         Arthur-who-was-Ford made another mental note- _Drinks will cure the mind._ Somehow he had always thought it was true.

           Ford-who-was-Zaphod was astonished. “Really? That’s all we need to do then, say our names backwards? How easy is that!” Without so much as a thank you, for he was terribly excited, Ford-who-was-Zaphod disconnected the Sub-Etha connection and whirled about to face his fellow travelers. “All right! Who’s going to say it first?”

         Although every single member of the _Heart of Gold_ crew wanted desperately to be returned to his or her own body, Ford-who-was-Zaphod’s words were met with a resounding silence. No one on board the _Heart of Gold_ was going to make a fool of themselves reciting their names backwards, and the fact struck Ford-who-was-Zaphod almost immediately after he had spoken. He folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine the letters in his name going backwards instead of forwards. It hurt his brain so much to think about it that he began to wish fervently for two brains again, to get the thinking done between them, and that only hastened his desperation to find out what his name was backwards. For a long moment all was silent.

         Until Trillian-who-was-Arthur suddenly burst out and shouted, “Tned Ruhtra!”

         All eyes snapped onto him, and for a moment all anyone could think was that Arthur had done a fine job of pronouncing the nonsense name. Then Trillian asked, “Did it work yet?”

         “No,” Arthur-who-was-Ford replied, stepping forward. “I suppose I’ve got to say mine now. Tceferp Drof.”

           “Ah,” sighed Arthur Dent, flexing his arms in a satisfied manner, “that’s much better.” It was such a relief to be returned to his body that he slunk over to the corner that he had been previously sitting in and gave the Nutri-Matic tea-lie concoction a tentative sip. It still tasted nasty, but he wasn’t complaining.

         “Oh, _hell,”_ Trillian suddenly blurted. “Now I’m in _her_ body!”

         “Say it,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod prompted Marvin-who-was-Trillian, and slowly, Marvin-who-was-Trillian murmured “Nallimcm Aicirt.” At once Trillian’s body was taken over by its rightful owner, who ran her fingers through her hair and took down her ponytail, pleased that Arthur hadn’t done anything to injure her body while he was in charge of it. However, there were more people who were still displeased at recent events.

         “Zaphod!” Marvin shouted in a voice that, though urgent, managed to come out as a more dreary tone than Ford had intended. “You have to say your name now!”

           “Er, well, I’m thinking about it,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod muttered, and then Zaphod-who-was-Marvin spoke up in such a quiet tone that he could barely be heard. “Nivram.” Zaphod’s two heads blinked in surprise, and Marvin took the opportunity of a reunion with his own body to promptly shut himself off.

         “Er…” Ford-who-was-Zaphod was saying, still struggling his way through the letters in his name and still staring at Marvin, failing to notice that he had turned off. “Just give me a minute, Ford…”

           “I’m not sure if you’ll need that,” Zaphod-who-was-Ford said softly, standing up and stretching out his muscles, with were sore from having sat in one place for too long. He took a moment to explore the expanded capacities of his new body before turning to Ford-who-was-Zaphod and advancing on him. Ford-who-was-Zaphod suddenly understood, and blinked, although he didn’t really need to.

         “I think,” Zaphod-who-was-Ford said with both mouths, “that I like this body.”

           Ford-who-was-Zaphod swallowed down his reaction to the disquieting sight before him and grinned a Ford Prefect grin. “Oh good, does that mean I get to keep yours, then?”

             “I suppose,” Zaphod-who-was-Ford said airily, moving over to the control panel. “If it means I get to make some modifications to your own.”

           Ford-who-was-Zaphod narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What kind of modifications are you talking about?”

         “Well,” Zaphod-who-was-Ford continued, bluffing his way back into his own body, “you were right, I really _don’t_ like the extra arm as much as I let on-“

         “After all that time it took to grow it? No way,” Ford-who-was-Zaphod said sharply.

           “And,” Zaphod-who-was-Ford continued, “I’d really like to be able to have sex with girls outside of Betelgeuse, so I think some surgery to the… heads would be required.”

               “XORBELBEEB DOHPAZ!” Zaphod yelled without thinking, and the Universe was restored to its rightful balance.

           No one ever spoke of this incident again, and after dropping off Arthur on Krikkit Zaphod decided to go to the nearest party planet to get rid of Ford straightaway, lest any more improbable incidents occur. He and Trillian settled down at a beach resort to go on a long holiday, and Marvin somehow ended up stuck on a backwater planet that Zaphod had “accidentally” chucked him onto. And so no one on board the _Heart of Gold_ kept in touch with each other, until one day Arthur was informed that his beloved planet Earth had miraculously been resurrected.

 


End file.
